Picture du Jour: Economic rebound stuck in “new normal”

The current U.S. economic rebound remains sub-par, as clearly seen in the chart below, courtesy of Goldman Sachs (via Clusterstock – Business Insider). As indicated by the blue line, a great deal of improvement still needs to take place to catch up with previous recoveries, especially again to see employment gains like we experienced in 1954–1982.

Confirming the true nature of the upswing, individual income taxes collected by the U.S. Treasury are at multi-year lows through the first four months of 2010 (see chart below). From their peak in 2008, personal income tax receipts have fallen by $232.1 billion, or 24.6%. As highlighted by Casey’s Daily Dispatch, “this is a good barometer of overall economic health and income growth. Lower national tax receipts mean lower national income, and without income growth a solid economic recovery will be hard to achieve.”